Cop cleared in civil suit over fatal shooting

Several members of the federal jury that quickly cleared a former Glen Ellyn police officer of wrongdoing Friday in the fatal shooting of a College of DuPage student said the officer was justified.

The jury deliberated less than an hour before returning its verdict in a civil lawsuit filed by the father of Benjamin Uwumarogie, 22, himself the father of two children.

Officer Jason Bradley was responding to a domestic battery call at Uwumarogie's Glen Ellyn apartment on April 26, 2006, when the football player straddled him and repeatedly punched him the face, he said.

Bradley, now a state trooper, said he was afraid of losing consciousness when he drew his service pistol and shot Uwumarogie once through the right eye.

A property manager at the Iron Gate apartments, Rick Olsen, said he saw the two in a physical struggle. Uwumarogie lunged at the officer, grabbed him by the arms and pushed him into a bedroom moments before a gunshot fired, Olsen said.

"We all felt that he was just overwhelmed," one juror, who declined to give her name, said after the verdict. "Maybe if there had been two officers, the outcome would have been different."

Benjamin Nwoye, one of the Uwumarogie family's attorneys, said the circumstantial case was made more difficult because the crime scene had not been processed properly. Uwumarogie's family declined to comment.